


the olive tree & lampstand

by rillrill



Category: Political RPF - US 21st c.
Genre: Blasphemy, Gen, M/M, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, rosary cock bondage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-09
Updated: 2016-10-09
Packaged: 2018-08-20 11:31:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8247214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rillrill/pseuds/rillrill
Summary: “Sometimes,” Ted says, “I believe free will might’ve been a mistake.”Paul laughs, short, unamused. “If only that were our choice to make.”





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [digitalis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/digitalis/gifts).



> e & u's greatest thematic hits, ft. paul ryan subbing for tim kaine and self-deluded second coming of jesus christ himself, ted cruz.
> 
> this is probably not super respectful to catholicism. sensitive catholics, turn back now. (not that i foresee many sensitive catholics reading my paul ryan/ted cruz fanfiction. but. fair warning has been had.)

 

Ted Cruz is finished.

He faced his demons in Cleveland; he stood onstage and spoke truth, the Father’s true, his own truth. _Lord, command me, guide my hand, help me say what’s in my heart_ , and He did, He wrote words that Ted spoke for Him—

(In private revery, ecstatic, speaking in tongues; he knows that God speaks through him — he is a mortal vessel, an earthly conduit for the Divine Word. When Ted speaks, it is in the voice of God. It’s why the faithful make up his most ardent followers and the wicked and sinful flee from His words. Ted’s words. He is Him.)

 

* * *

 

"I won’t endorse,” he says.

Paul doesn’t look up. Paul is forty-five pushups deep on his office floor. Ted watches, instead; watches the sweat roll down his brow, watches the fine musculature in his biceps roil with the effort of each rep. Watches the muscles in his back move under the thin white cotton of his t-shirt. Back like a barrel of snakes. Ted licks his lips.

Forty-eight. Forty-nine. Fifty. Paul rises, dusting his hands off against his pants. Ted says nothing.

“Look,” Paul says, and his voice this time is plaintive, nearly pleading. “I understand, Ted. Really, I do. This was never my first choice.”

“You saw the crowds. You saw them in Cleveland. This is not an ordinary election,” says Ted.

Paul exhales. He lifts the hem of his t-shirt to wipe the sweat from his brow and Ted’s jaw clenches against his will at the flash of painstakingly carved-out abdominal muscles. “I know,” Paul says. “But _please_. Please understand, this isn’t my decision. It’s the will of the people.”

“Sometimes,” Ted says, “I believe free will might’ve been a mistake.”

Paul laughs, short, unamused. “If only that were our choice to make.”

Again, Ted says nothing. He folds his arms across his chest and leans against the front of Paul’s desk. Paul’s got a way of making silence feel like a loaded gun.

Paul crosses to him; runs his hand down Ted’s arm and clasps his hand to shake. “Please,” he says again. “Say you’ll support the nominee that the country has chosen.”

“ _If anyone says to you then, 'Look, here is the Messiah!' or, 'There he is!' do not believe it. False messiahs and false prophets will arise, and they will perform signs and wonders so great as to deceive, if that were possible, even the elect_.” Ted looks him straight in the eye, those watery blue eyes, the bags beneath them more pronounced than they were three years ago. “Matthew 24:21. Do you disagree?”

Quiet. Breath drawn. Closer, now, than before. Paul’s grasp tightens on his hand, and Paul brushes his lips against Ted’s cheek, and he steps back and breaks the handshake altogether.

“Say you’ll support the nominee that the country has chosen,” says Paul. “Or I’ll see that Mike has words with you.”

 

* * *

 

The Khan business. Slipping.

Kellyanne’s defection. Slipping.

Pence, in his office, hot rank breath down the back of his neck, sharp-nailed grip on Ted’s fleshy white wrist, something not quite canny, not quite right about his dull, hollow voice — “You’ll endorse,” Pence told him, “one way or the other,” and Ted did not fall, but he slipped—

 _After many months of careful consideration, of prayer and searching my own conscience, I have decided that on Election Day, I will vote for the Republican nominee, Donald Trump_.

 

* * *

 

The first debate. Slipping.

The Miss Universe business. Slipping.

The phone banks, the cameras, withering black humiliation. Heidi slipping away from him day by day. His followers defecting, day by day.

"Can I count on your support for Donald Trump at the polls this November?" he asks, again and again, and each time he feels a roll of thunder, a lightning strike, somewhere in the distance. When they say _no, I'm a registered Republican but I could never vote for Trump_ , that hurts. 

When they say yes, it's worse.

Paul is getting thinner, more pallid, his stare more haunted by the day. More than once he answers the phone to an unknown number when Ted is in the room and flushes magenta before slipping away. “No, no, Mr. Kaine, I’m afraid this isn’t a good time — no, I’m sorry, sir, yes, I’ll make the time—” 

They’re all slipping.

 

* * *

 

He nearly walks in, near midnight on Friday the seventh, on Paul in a most peculiar way, the door of the antechamber to the Speaker’s office cracked open and a quiet muttering from therein. Ted positions himself carefully, silently, aligned with the crack, and can’t believe what he sees: Paul, pale, eyes shut, hard cock freed from his boxer briefs, what looks like a string of rosary beads wrapped tight around the base—

Ted’s body goes ice-hot and his heart nearly freezes. He edges back, away from the door, and treads silently as he can until he can turn tail and run, sprint, through the halls of the Capitol.

 

* * *

 

Heidi won’t let him touch her, even a brush on the arm, an embrace upon his return from D.C. — Heidi shakes her head coldly in the foyer and asks, _Have you made your decision yet?_  Heidi won’t let him touch the girls, shepherds them away with warm, motherly coos but a sentence that chills him to the bone: _No, let’s not hug Daddy today, I don’t know if that’s a good idea_. Heidi, it seems, will force his hand, one way or the other—

“I can’t unendorse,” he says on his knees, crying, begging, desperate, and Heidi, in her bathrobe and flannel pajamas, turns out the light with a shake of the head.

“I’ll be in the guest room,” she says. “I’m locking the door.”

 

* * *

 

He prays.

He prays out loud, shouting, gasping guttural moans. He prays with the image of Paul in his office, head thrown back, cock and rosary in hand. He prays for himself, for Paul, for Heidi, for the girls, for the country, for the nation—

_Father, forgive me, all this time, I thought it was Barack, I fought him in Your Name, I swore I’d unmask the devil in Your Name. I didn’t know, none of us knew. I didn’t think it could get worse, none of us knew how much worse it could get._

 

* * *

 

He calls Paul from the landline. Paul picks up on the first ring: “Mr. Kaine—”

“It’s Ted,” he says, and then pauses. “Mr. Kaine? Expecting a call from the enemy camp?”

“The enemy of my enemy,” Paul says, quiet and stilted after a moment, and then, “say what you’ve got to. I know what’s coming.”

“You know what I’m going to say, Paul.”

“I want to hear you say it.”

“It’s Heidi. She won’t budge. She told me Donald made a pass at her — back at the debate—”

“You don’t believe that.”

“She’s a beautiful woman, Paul,” Ted says, affronted. 

Uncomfortable pause. “Apologies.”

“I have to.”

Silence. “Go on, then,” Paul says after entirely too long. “I appreciate your telling me.”

“And you?” Ted asks, can’t shake the question gnawing at him. “When will the others let you go? What are you and Reince supposed to be -- Butch and Sundance?”

More silence. He can hear Paul’s breath, heavy and hard on the other end of the line. “October 9th,” says Paul after a few moments, “is the Feast of St. Denis. Beheaded by the sword. Martyred for picking up a reputation for being _too good_ at converting unbelievers.”

“Ah?” Ted frowns. “I don’t follow—”

“Don’t lose your head, Ted,” Paul says. “Not that you would. You’re not martyr material -- no offense.”

Flash of red, bright like fury. “None taken.” 

“If efficiency is the sword upon which I fall, it’s a fate I’m prepared to meet,” Paul says slowly. “I will never apologize for serving my God or my country.”

“The country isn’t God.”

“The country _needs_ God.”

“No, God needs our country,” Ted spits, all bile and venom, surreal disgust, bitter as almond. “Have a good evening, Paul. Enjoy the debate, and the life of the world to come.”

 

* * *

 

Slipping. All slipping.

Not much further to fall, now.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> go to [usvotefoundation.org](https://www.usvotefoundation.org/) to register to vote, check your status, or update your registration in minutes.


End file.
